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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27431635">After the War</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eleutheramina/pseuds/Eleutheramina'>Eleutheramina</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>5d's ended at episode 64, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Post-Dark Signer Arc</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 00:55:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,911</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27431635</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eleutheramina/pseuds/Eleutheramina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>If he, as a King, really saved everyone, then she would be living, like Martha is, like Taka and Nerve and Blitz are.</p><p>Post-episode 64 canon divergence AU, in which dead people stay dead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jack Atlas/Carly Nagisa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>After the War</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>After the war, Martha being found revived, miraculously, is what first causes Jack to hope. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack has never been an especially affectionate person, even when he was younger. Yusei is somehow always more naturally affectionate. What concern Yusei doesn't convey through his words, he’d convey through his actions.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack is the kind of person who would only hug someone if they asked, and even then he’d do it awkwardly; being taller and having longer arms than the average person only made things worse. But when Martha pulls him into an embrace, he cannot help but return it with equal vigor, even as the bruises from his past two duels still linger and ache. After all, he saw her get consumed by the Earthbound God Uru only a day or two before, and now here she is, hugging him like he is still seven years old. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she finally releases him, Martha says, “I knew it. A King always saves everyone.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack looks away at the embarrassment of being reminded of his childhood fancies, but he has to admit--they are words that he wants to believe in. That by defeating Godwin, the Signers were able to save everyone. Those sacrificed to the Earthbound Gods, and perhaps also... </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusei tells him with relief that he found Taka, Nerve, and Blitz back at his underground base, worn but in good spirits. Others in Satellite who had been sacrificed are also revived, and they hear activity has resumed in Neo Domino City, as well. Despite their trials, on Aki and Ruka and Rua’s faces, and even somewhat on Yusei’s, are smiles of triumph and celebration.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That Rally has yet to be seen by anyone doesn’t even faze Yusei yet, at least not visibly.  None of them fully understood the logic of how death and sacrifices worked with the Earthbound Gods, after all. Yusei is optimistic that he’ll turn up somewhere in Satellite. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Seeing his optimism, Jack wonders if Yusei also thinks Kiryu will turn up, magicked back to life by the Crimson Dragon, but he doesn’t ask.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>A couple days later, Rally is still not found. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusei has always been someone who channels grief into action. Despondent but still determined, tells Jack he’s returning to Neo Domino City with Mikage and Ushio on their chopper. He wants to start to talk to Jaeger about what it would take to get the Daedalus Bridge finished. Aki is going with him to return to her parents; Rua and Ruka want to go back to check on Yanagi and Himuro and tell them about all the things that happened. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Jack declines accompanying them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guessed that Crow would stay behind, but knowing you, I thought you’d be the most eager to return to the city,” Yusei says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmph. Maybe you don’t know me as well as you thought.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Yusei gives him a thoughtful look, then a quick wave goodbye. They’d see each other again, sooner or later; the marks on their forearms guaranteed it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they’re all gone, Jack sets off. The ride to get back to the Aslla Piscu controller again takes a few hours, but Jack doesn’t mind. Even when he’s not dueling, going on rides in the Wheel of Fortune are usually enjoyable for him. Besides the thrill of the speed, he loves the time he gets to think and ponder. It helps him unwind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This time though, he finds that his heart is beating in a way that it usually only does in an exhilarating duel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he finally arrives, he’s not sure what he had expected to find. There was never much in the landscape to begin with, aside from some crags in the distance and boulders to push through. The controller towers over him stark and gray, mockingly.  </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Without the hummingbird geoglyph burning violet around him, it takes him a bit of time to figure out the path on which their duel had happened. He circles around the area for a few laps, but it is beyond clear--there is no one else there. He has a sharp intake of breath when he sees drops of blood on the ground, before he realizes that given how dried they are, they must be his own from before. They are the only remnant of their duel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he drives back to Martha’s, it is evening, and it is almost unbearably cold.</span>
</p>
<hr/><p>
  <span>Three weeks later, Jack decides to return to Neo Domino City. He’s not sure why he stays in Satellite as long as he does. Something about being around the kids, though loud and often annoying, was comforting--even if they have more questions about the Dark Signers than he is okay with answering. Martha is happy to let him stay as long as he wants, and the kids seem to enjoy having him around.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night, after begrudgingly telling the kids another story of his time as Duel King, another story of his duel with Godwin, he realizes that he isn’t sure where else to go. Or rather, he knows where he needs to go, but he is scared of what he will find there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually, he calls Mikage to send him a helicopter to take him back to the city. Though she sounds concerned, she acquiesces nonetheless. A helicopter arrives the next morning, and he sees Satellite grow smaller and smaller as he watches out the window. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he gets dropped off, it takes him almost a whole day of meandering the city to get back to the front door of her apartment. He realizes he never had to figure out how to get there. Jack is normally good at keeping track of small things; he can remember how many cards both he and his opponent has left in their decks at any given time in a duel. But even when they went out to that amusement park, or when she would drag him out in disguise to check out a new dessert place that had just opened up, she was always there to guide him back to her place. Learning street names was something he never had to do, at least in Neo Domino City. He wonders, briefly, what else he had not had to do because she was there. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds himself knocking on the door when he gets there. Mostly out of habit, he tells himself. He waits a few minutes, glaring at a neighbor who gawks at him for too long. When no one comes to let him in, he uses the spare key that he tucked away in his coat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She let him have it after he snuck out on her that one day. “If you ever decide to disappear on me again,” he remembers her saying, “you’ll at least have a way back in when you’re ready.” Something in his mind feels heavy, recalling those words in her voice, so close to where they once lived together, ignorant of everything that would happen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He had forgotten to give the key back to her when he left--between the Earthbound God appearing and Kiryu’s duel with Yusei, there was too much going on at the time. But she also hadn’t asked. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In her apartment on her desk are textbooks that he never understood the purpose of and papers strewn around; whenever she caught his look of judgement, she would tell him she’d get around to neatening up her work space one day. Her laptop is still open, albeit asleep, like she could’ve been working there just before he arrived. But the half-consumed mug of tea next to her computer is not just lukewarm, but cold. </span>
  <span><br/>
</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He sits down. He had stared over her shoulder as she worked enough times to have learned her password—fortunefairyhikari, all lowercase. When he thinks about her getting upset at him snooping in her laptop, he tells himself that he would tell her to get a stronger password and (maybe, eventually) apologize.   </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The screen flickers on, and he sees that she left multiple tabs open. One is an article about the Arcadia Movement featuring Aki Izayoi, Fortune Cup Semifinalist. Before he can stop himself, he navigates to her inbox. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In it are hundreds and hundreds of emails. Some subscriptions to coupons at local restaurants, some about her bank account statement, some Neo Domino daily news briefings. It was easy enough to rationalize that she might have not wanted to read those anyway, and he tries to at first. But he could not ignore the multiple emails sent from her boss asking her for an update on her latest scoop, asking her why she still hadn’t sent in the edited version of her latest story on the Fortune Cup finals, warning her that her story was long overdue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All of them dated within the last month and still unread. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows Carly is not always the most organized, but she never misses a deadline.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Clenching his fist, he hits it on the desk. The laptop, still illuminated with unread emails, shakes.  </span>
</p><p>

<span>If he had not returned, if he had stayed in Satellite, he could have stayed with Martha. He could have kept on telling the boy Taka and his friends stories of his past victories. He could have allowed himself to believe that somewhere in the world, she was still alive. They might not have ever spoken again, but at least he would have the comfort of believing she was still in the world. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now he knows. If he, as a King, really saved everyone, then she would be living, like Martha is, like Taka and Nerve and Blitz are. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But not like Rally, he reminds himself. Not like Rally, who sacrificed himself to save Yusei, just like she sacrificed herself for him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Eventually the laptop screen dims. He closes it. He is tired, and his body aches. He doesn't know where else to go. He decides to spend the night in her bed, like he once did. He half expects her to open the door at 2 am and be shocked that he’s back to sleeping there, but she never does. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes a while for him to fall asleep. After laying in bed for an hour, he gets up, retrieves her glasses from his jacket, and lies down on the bed glaring at them. He recalls how he once imagined how he would give them back to her, before he learned what had really happened to her. Red Daemon’s Dragon would defeat the Earthbound Gods, those sacrificed would be revived, and they would reunite. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In his imagination, Carly is frazzled but relieved to see him. She first asks if he is alright before demanding that he finally tell her everything about what happened to him during the war, notebook in one hand and pencil ready in the other. He tries to be cool, telling her that she should be patient and that she shouldn’t have gotten herself into so much trouble. After all, he told her to stay out of it. And he presents the glasses to her offhandedly, asking her if she wasn’t blind without them. She pouts but takes them from him, and then reaches out to give him a hug. He complies. It would be awkward, but good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He is stuck with the glasses now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something tightly wound in Jack’s chest uncoils. Tears form in his eyes. Feeling the heftiness of the frames in his hand, he realizes that Dark Signers have no bodies to be buried. </span>
</p>
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